I was talking to one of our fire safety trainers about glass break units for activating the fire alarm. He stated that the correct way to activate these units is take off one of your shoes, hold it at arms length, turn your head away and break the glass with the shoe. This way there is no risk of cutting yourself. At first I thought he was joking but apparently not – anyone else heard this? Well it is nearly Friday!

Does the type of call point make a difference? What about those toffee type hammers on a chain for the thicker circular glass? We have glass break points which are about 40mm x 25mm and you can press these in with your finger.

And your fire trainer is getting his information from? The risks of finger cuts are very slim, and as suggested if its a real issue for your site why not invest in small hammers that are chained to the MCP?

Hi Years ago we used to advocate using an elbow which was normally protected by a jacket or overall. In the case of female office staff who might have short sleeves the recommendation was to use a shoe. This worked well until at the beginning of a fire drill we asked one of the females to set the alarm off an she promptly hit the glass with her shoe - but she had stiletto heels and the inside of the call point was so damaged we couldn't stop the alarm properly for nearly two hours. John C

Using a shoe as a hammer is something I have heard of from time to time over the years, but it doesn’t seem very practicable in an emergency situation. The snag with the little hammers on chains attached to break glass call points is that some people like to steal them, though goodness knows for what purpose. Perhaps it’s to emulate doctors by testing muscle reflexes or even to break hard toffee! From a quick internet search it seems that instead of glass some manual call points nowadays incorporate flexible plastic (so best not to refer to them as “break glass” call points) which simply bends if pushed and activates the button behind, and doesn’t need replacing. However, most call points still contain frangible glass which needs to be replaced if they are activated. I hadn’t come across the term “frangible” before, so have checked and found that it generally refers to the capacity/tendency of an item or substance to break into fragments if subjected to deformation. As I’ve never seen any call point with a sign or text advising the use of a shoe to break its glass, perhaps using a thumb, a pen or the corner of a book for example is generally sufficient to break such glass these days. Is there anyone reading this topic who is suitably knowledgeable and can advise us better about call point glass frangibility?

Oops, forgot to add a flippant but topical remark in my post above that waving a shoe about might be misconstrued as a sign of protest or insult. It is apparently now a practice among fans at some UK football matches as well as in Arabic cultures. I know it’s not Friday yet, the customary day for frivolity on this forum, but it’s not far off ! Graham Bullough p.s. This brief post should also add to the quota of posts needed to reclassify me from “new forum user” to “forum user”. Better not send too many though, otherwise I could be at risk of being upgraded to “super duper forum user “ or suchlike.

OMG. thanks for the info - I'm off to modify my training docs! =)

I agree it is drivel Not untypical of trainers who have no experience or competence in the subject that they are claiming a fee for, but simply have a had a short course on how to run any training session. Steve

The term 'break glass' is probably an old one as many if not all modern systems use plastic that is designed not to break but to push back - if trainers are still using old terms without explaining them then change your trainers

We could chain a shoe to each MCP? Seriously though, I staff members elbowing & punching MCP, and they sit scratching their head wondering why they have injured themselves. A simple push on the breakglass (most liklely plastic) is all thats required.

If I try to break the glass / plastic with my size tens then I'm sure I would not get anywhere as the aperature availablee is far too small. As given elsewhere I was trained to use the elbow but thinking about it, keys or a pen poked at the glass area should achieve the same effect. What would the forum use apart from the items already cited? Badger

If you do that. The door it was wedging open will close! ;-)

quote=guru]We could chain a shoe to each MCP?

Well I've learned something this morning, I thought they were all plastic today, I didn't know glass was still around... Since it's Friday I'll contribute the following. A year or so back I was approached by a senior manager - who'd been in the organisation for years - who'd just noticed that there were no break glass fire call points in our office, and wanted to know what I was going to do about it. I led him on a tour of the office, pointing out the little red boxes with "In case of fire break glass" on them, finishing with the one that's visible from his desk.

With steel toe caps and midsole protection of course Steve.

I read all of the above with interest, my thoughts are that I understood that only older model MCP's have glass (Or a combination of glass with a plastic layer to contain glass fragments on operation). I believe now that modern MCP's have a frangible plastic face that holds the activation button in its latent position under light pressure, once the frangible plastic face is ruptured by manual activation or distortion from direct heat the button is released to its fail safe position and the alarm is activated. If I'm wrong in my understanding I'd appreciate some feedback.